Guidance

Vehicle licensing statistics: faster indicators of new vehicle registrations

Updated 24 July 2024

To support recent interest in electric vehicle (EV) uptake, the Department for Transport (DfT) has developed a simple methodology that combines vehicle registration data supplied by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA), with the monthly published data from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) to produce an early, provisional, estimate of the number of newly registered vehicles that DfT currently publishes as official statistics. These estimates are not official statistics, but internal analysis of already published data. This note sets out the process by which these estimates are produced to enable others to replicate this analysis and obtain the same estimates, if they so wish.

Vehicle licensing statistics: faster indicators of new vehicle registrations are provisional estimates. These may differ slightly from later officially published figures, once final data are available. Please use the latest vehicle licensing statistics for official statistics.

Methodology

DfT’s methodology calculates the month-on-month percentage change of new vehicle registrations obtained from published SMMT data, individually for both cars and light goods vehicles (LGVs). The month-on-month percentage change is then applied iteratively to the most recent published DfT official statistics figure where available, or the latest estimate, for later months. This process is used for both new registrations of cars and LGVs respectively, to estimate the most recent unpublished  data.

An example of this is set out below:

• DfT’s official statistic on the number of zero emission cars as at September is 45,315 while for the same month, the SMMT’s data equivalent figure is 45,325
• in the following month, SMMT’s data records 23,943 zero emission cars newly registered
• this represents a change of -47.2% newly registered zero emission cars, according to SMMT. Note that it is necessary to use the full, unrounded percentage change for complete accuracy in the subsequent values
• if DfT’s September value were to change by the same percent as SMMT data, this would represent a decrease of -21,376 cars
• this would result in a new DfT estimate of 23,939 zero emission cars (45,315 minus 21,376) for the month of October

When calculating DfT’s estimate for the following month, November, DfT’s latest estimate of zero emission cars would be used as the latest figure, and the above process repeated. DfT’s most recent estimate would continue to be used in this way until the next iteration of official statistics are published.

The above methodology is also used to produce DfT estimates of new registrations of other (non-zero emission) fuel types to provide a total estimate of new registrations. This process is used for both cars and LGVs.

Use of provisional estimates

Figures calculated using the methodology outlined above are used in internal DfT analysis, and may be quoted externally as provisional estimates, until the time at which official statistics become available, as advertised via the DfT statistical publications schedule. Users of these provisional estimates should be aware that they may differ slightly from later officially published figures, once final data are available.

DfT recommends always using the official vehicle licensing statistics as the default where available. These statistics have undergone extensive quality assurance to meet the standards of the Code of Practice for Statistics.

Background to the data and comparative differences

DVLA data

Vehicle licensing statistics are produced from extracts of the DVLA vehicle database. These statistics are produced to the high professional standards set out in the Code of Practice for Statistics. They undergo regular quality assurance reviews to ensure that they meet customer needs. They were designated as accredited official statistics in April 2012.

The scale of the data being processed, and the necessary quality assurance, means that the publication of these data is currently lagged by at least 3 months.

SMMT data

The SMMT publishes monthly new registration data for vehicles in the UK, with a minimal time lag.

In comparison to DVLA data, SMMT figures are collated directly from manufacturers and therefore only report new vehicle sales, rather than all new registrations. There may occasionally be some data missing from very new manufacturers, some minor differences in body type classifications used and SMMT figures are not revised following publication.

These differences mean that although the broad trends between the SMMT data and the statistics published from DVLA data tend to be similar, the absolute values are slightly different.